They don’t call him Captain Cool for nothing. Indian skipper MS Dhoni’s exterior demeanor did not expose his inner thoughts as India almost gave away the game to the unpredictable West Indies in their Pool B league encounter of the International Cricket Council’s World Cup 2015 fixture at Perth.
A wee bit of the “displeasure” was seen when Dhoni admonished his batting partner Ravichandran Ashwin for looking for a second run that did not exist. That being done, he slipped back into his meditative monk’s robe to calmly guide India to a four-wicket win and keep the team in pole position in their group.
Quite in contrast were the feared Chris Gayle and his partner Marlon Samuels when they faced the consistent Indian attack on a fresh pitch at Perth. They could not repeat the record breaking Batman and Robin act that they performed against Zimbabwe earlier in the tournament.
There were two reasons for this: the Indian attack was reinvigorated with the return of Mohammed Shami, who went on to win the Man of the Match award for his three wickets for 35 runs, and the pitch at Perth was not as conducive to batting as it was in the earlier matches on this ground.
Windies fumble, bowlers save the day for India
Gayle looked completely out of sorts as he played and missed the moving ball, which was consistently aimed at his weak zone, and looked to be in a hurry to get his power-packed act going. Samuels, the dangerous player – he has a super track record against India in One Day Internationals – committed hara kiri and ran himself out to give India an early breakthrough.
It was befuddling to see two experienced international players – who have 440 one day appearances between them – not following the basic tenet of running between wickets: communicating with one another. One kept looking at the ball while the other ran blindly.
The Perth pitch, as Dhoni admitted after the match, was not an easy one to bat on. The batsmen needed to wait for the right ball to play their shots. The most important ingredient in such a scenario, patience, was missing not just from the West Indian batsmen’s armour but from that of the in-form Indians.
It was eventually the bowlers who once again saved the blushes for the Indian batting juggernaut with their disciplined approach. They kept attacking the West Indian batsmen in the right areas and did not get carried away with the extra pace and bounce that the pitch offered, as we have seen them do in the past.
Some things need fixing
India’s lower order had not really been tested in the tournament and the match against the Windies gave them an opportunity to bat in trying circumstances. The discomfort of Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja while negotiating pace and bounce is an important aspect the team management needs to address when they meet in the war room.
Apart from the tidy and consistent bowling, a positive takeaway for the Indians is the return to form of their skipper. India’s near shave against the Windies, after their emphatic wins against Pakistan, South Africa and the UAE, shows that the team still has some way to go to achieve peak performance with regards to batting.
Now that India have qualified for the knock-out stage, the games will be much tougher as the opponents will give no quarter in a do or die situation. It will, therefore, be interesting to see what strategy the India think-tank employs in the next two league games against Ireland and Zimbabwe.
It is imperative for Ravi Shastri, Duncan Fletcher and skipper Dhoni to keep the fire burning and ensure that the team does not get complacent while playing lesser opponents in the next two league games. Complacency can be contagious and it will take more than a cool captain to handle that aspect.
A wee bit of the “displeasure” was seen when Dhoni admonished his batting partner Ravichandran Ashwin for looking for a second run that did not exist. That being done, he slipped back into his meditative monk’s robe to calmly guide India to a four-wicket win and keep the team in pole position in their group.
Quite in contrast were the feared Chris Gayle and his partner Marlon Samuels when they faced the consistent Indian attack on a fresh pitch at Perth. They could not repeat the record breaking Batman and Robin act that they performed against Zimbabwe earlier in the tournament.
There were two reasons for this: the Indian attack was reinvigorated with the return of Mohammed Shami, who went on to win the Man of the Match award for his three wickets for 35 runs, and the pitch at Perth was not as conducive to batting as it was in the earlier matches on this ground.
Windies fumble, bowlers save the day for India
Gayle looked completely out of sorts as he played and missed the moving ball, which was consistently aimed at his weak zone, and looked to be in a hurry to get his power-packed act going. Samuels, the dangerous player – he has a super track record against India in One Day Internationals – committed hara kiri and ran himself out to give India an early breakthrough.
It was befuddling to see two experienced international players – who have 440 one day appearances between them – not following the basic tenet of running between wickets: communicating with one another. One kept looking at the ball while the other ran blindly.
The Perth pitch, as Dhoni admitted after the match, was not an easy one to bat on. The batsmen needed to wait for the right ball to play their shots. The most important ingredient in such a scenario, patience, was missing not just from the West Indian batsmen’s armour but from that of the in-form Indians.
It was eventually the bowlers who once again saved the blushes for the Indian batting juggernaut with their disciplined approach. They kept attacking the West Indian batsmen in the right areas and did not get carried away with the extra pace and bounce that the pitch offered, as we have seen them do in the past.
Some things need fixing
India’s lower order had not really been tested in the tournament and the match against the Windies gave them an opportunity to bat in trying circumstances. The discomfort of Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja while negotiating pace and bounce is an important aspect the team management needs to address when they meet in the war room.
Apart from the tidy and consistent bowling, a positive takeaway for the Indians is the return to form of their skipper. India’s near shave against the Windies, after their emphatic wins against Pakistan, South Africa and the UAE, shows that the team still has some way to go to achieve peak performance with regards to batting.
Now that India have qualified for the knock-out stage, the games will be much tougher as the opponents will give no quarter in a do or die situation. It will, therefore, be interesting to see what strategy the India think-tank employs in the next two league games against Ireland and Zimbabwe.
It is imperative for Ravi Shastri, Duncan Fletcher and skipper Dhoni to keep the fire burning and ensure that the team does not get complacent while playing lesser opponents in the next two league games. Complacency can be contagious and it will take more than a cool captain to handle that aspect.
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